Sitting on the porch, sipping coffee, contemplating life and realizing I am slowly learning life’s lessons, but they are very expensive ones that leave me indebted in ways I never thought imaginable and to which I can only strive to repay.

Some of the problem is the transition between being a man of limited thoughts and ideologies to one of free thoughts, ideas and actions. The Christianity I absorbed by osmosis growing up and the Wicca I dabbled in in my 20s both have a theme in common with the idea of a life of unrestricted freedom: as long as you are not hurting others with your actions, go ahead and do what you want. It’s an idea I’ve always adhered to but it seems to get harder and harder to live up to it.

Despite this mature outlook to life it feels like only now, at 40+, as certain aspects of my life feel out of my control or out of synch with the way I want to live my life, am I growing up! Isn’t that meant to happen, magically, at 18 or 21? Life just hasn’t been that idealized image for me of a school-college-job-marriage-kids-promotion-big house and car-… progression and I realize now that somewhere in my subconscious this has bothered me and greatly influenced the situation I find myself in, (how could it not, right?).

Only once in my life have I jumped into a situation without fear and procrastination, (which on reflection, are very similar), and I gained so much from that, but I’ve let the good I gained become tainted with my old ways, which have only amplified the way things are.

Last night my wife and I were talking about it and we realized that in a lot of life’s situations, people have a tendency to “bury their head in the sand”, until suddenly, the problem they’ve been avoiding becomes real. We live reactive lives rather than proactive lives.

From here, the mentality I’m aiming to achieve and maintain is one of seeing and planning and doing, not of dreaming and hoping and waiting. Only I can rectify the things I see as detrimental in my behavior and outlook. As much as others in my life may want to help, it is only up to me to do it. And only me.